Oliver White (Editor) – His Unreliable Memoirs – The Garland

The Garland

I was nervous of working with Horace Ove on ‘The Garland’.  I’d looked at his previous drama and was alarmed.  Like Mozart’s king, who said, ‘Too many notes’, this had ‘Too many shots’!  and he did ‘The Garland’ the same way!  He was a distinctive figure in his leather jacket…..If I’d squeezed in every angle he’d covered, it would certainly have looked too fussy, so I spent a lot of the time saying, ‘Horace, do you really think we need that shot?’  Then one glorious day, about a month into editing, he said ‘Oliver. Just do what you want to do’.  I could then RELAX and use three shots out of four!  He brought us mangoes from Southall, and I still have his Dracula mug.

There was a room of his fine photographs at the National Portrait Gallery about eighteen months ago.

I regard this film as a personal triumph!